Hi there, this section will be a widget in your footer columns. Go to appearance>widgets from the wordpress dash. You'll see the various widgets inside there on the left and the locations you can place them on the right.

If you've not placed any manual widgets in before and the widget area is empty, then the widgets you currently have displaying are being shown by default and you'll need to recreate them using your own choice of widgets from the options available on the left.

You would need to edit the PHP files using a text editor program. It's not recommended that you edit the footer file or any core files in the theme, but since this is a legacy theme that's never going to be updated again (so there would be nothing to overwrite during upgrade), I think it would be okay for you to try to edit footer PHP file. Just make sure you have an unedited back-up of it so that if a change in the piece of code breaks the site, at least you can re-upload the back-up file and start over.

You would need to edit the PHP files using a text editor program. It's not recommended that you edit the footer file or any core files in the theme, but since this is a legacy theme that's never going to be updated again (so there would be nothing to overwrite during upgrade), I think it would be okay for you to try to edit footer PHP file. Just make sure you have an unedited back-up of it so that if a change in the piece of code breaks the site, at least you can re-upload the back-up file and start over.

Okay, PHP isn't easier than a widget which is a simple drag & drop element. There are plugins that work in WHPro that will create a widget to include all the social icons you could possibly desire. In fact, there are probably more social icon plugins than any other kind. With an appropriately selected (compatible with WP 3.4.2) plugin installed, you can have your widget in place in minutes, no coding needed.